Another great romantic artist hardly any one has ever heard of any more, though emphatically not a Russian this time. Akseli Gallen-Kallela is most famous for his illustrations of the Finnish national poem, the Kalevala, though he never actually finished them (due to dying before he had completed them). I'm not sure if its official, but in a book I have about Gallen-Kallela, he is refered to as the National Artist of Finland.
Born in 1865, Gallen-Kallela went on to study at the Académie Julian, which for an artist, short of a personal tutorship from the ghost of Leonardo, is about as good an education as its possible to get and yet when Gallen-Kallela went back to Finland, married and had children he was nothing more than a fairly typical artist of the period. Lots of his early works, though technically good, are rather boring.
One curious detail is the painting he used to gain entry to the Académie Julian, 'Boy and Crow' (above) seems a great deal 'cleaner', yet more abstract and curious (and thus more interesting) than any of the work he did whilst at the Académie, most of which resembles the work of some one trying to be a French impressionist (many an echo of the dwarf of Montmatre).
It took the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his daughter to awaken the true artistic soul of Gallen-Kallela, a price no father would ever wish to pay. There after, Gallen-Kallela's work became darker, more intense, and undeniably personal. Gallen-Kallela was also a Finnish nationalist whose work mirrored an intense love of his nation and a lot of his paintings have nationalist overtones.
I first encountered Gallen-Kallela in a second hand book shop where I came across a great fat book of his work, and was amazed to have never heard his name before (or since). Naturally I bought the book, and still have it. Its full of stark, uncompromising images that recall dark emotions and lost innocence. Young children and old men, the Forests of Finland and the ever present ambience of Scandinavia, the Baltic and the northern skies. Great stuff, all sadly unfashionable in the i-age.
2 comments:
I love the picture of the boy and the crow! How calmly expressive.
I can just imagine the boy being told to stand still. He looks like he's doing exactly as he was told.
I like the picture because it looks posed and artificial, and yet the crow has a curiously indifferent air to the rigid boy. I also love that the boy has virtually no shadow giving him the appearance of almost floating.
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